Drawing up the electro-pneumatic diagram of a valve island does take some time; from a few hours (for the simplest) to several days (for the most complex). This is a job that machine builders are finding it increasingly difficult to ignore. Schedules are crucial for those who want to take the step towards predictive maintenance. But it can be done faster. Much faster. With Schematic Solutions they get completely error-free, norm-compliant EPLAN documentation in just a few minutes. Ready to use for about £80.
Digitization
For many end users today, the pneumatic section of machines is actually a black box because the pneumatic schematics are often missing. That makes no difference in the daily operation of the machine, but what if maintenance is required or a defect occurs? Then it is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Digitalisation in general and the advent of digital twins in particular make these situations unacceptable. Machine builders must make all information and documentation available digitally. Festo is already doing its bit by offering the complete macros of all its products and product assemblies in the EPLAN Data Portal and keeping that information up to date.
Challenge in designing complex products
If you want to draw the pneumatic and/or electrical diagrams of a valve island, you can use them to assemble the macros component by component. But joining them together will not suffice. With six simple Lego blocks, almost a billion combinations of stacking methods are possible.
Valve islands, on the other hand, can easily consist of more than 100 pneumatic and electrical variables. Calculate how much time it will take to draw up the schematic manually and how likely it is that an error will be made. This applies not only to valve islands, but also to other complex products such as handling systems, service units or servo-pressure kits.
Reduce errors, time and costs
Schematic Solutions changes this by automating this time-consuming process for machine builders. What could otherwise take up to several days of manual drawing is now done in minutes, without any chance of errors and in full compliance with standards. The result is a ready-to-use and above all completely correct functional electro-pneumatic diagram. This structure can be integrated into the schematics of an EPLAN project without further modifications and can be called up again at any time. Each diagram can also be manually adjusted or expanded if necessary. In addition, a PDF is generated and the user receives a parts list, spare parts list and layout view. In short, Schematic Solutions helps machine builders working in EPLAN with:
Step by step to a perfect design
But how does it work in practice? The Schematic Solutions service can be found in the Festo App World and not in the Festo online shop where all customers calculate and order their components. All software solutions and services from Festo are collected in the Festo App World. It is a web-based application in which only the IDENT code needs to be entered. This is the unique order code that each individual configuration of a valve island receives when assembled in the configurator of the online shop. A code that also makes it possible to retrieve the pneumatic and electrical diagrams afterwards, as a machine builder or end user.
The software behind Schematic Solutions then sets to work to automatically generate a correctly configured EPLAN project in ZW1 format and in PDF. A few minutes after entry, the project will be ready to integrate into EPLAN, a service that is also available 24/7.
Try out the example project of a configured valve island here.